Advertisement

For years, we've been told 'A Dog is for Life, Not Just for Christmas', but it seems some dog owners are struggling to understand the message as they find bizarre reasons to dump pets.

Dogs Trust, the UK's largest dog welfare charity, has listed some of the excuses it has been given. They include:

· "My dog doesn't match the sofa"

· "My dog doesn't look like what he did on the website"

· "He wouldn't fit in my handbag or wear the outfit I bought him"

· "He smells of 'dog"

· "He keeps scaring the goldfish"

Staff at Cleadon Kennels on South Tyneside say they too are given a number of excuses. More than 40 dogs are being cared for at the moment. Manager, Sarah Wilkinson, wants tighter laws to make owners face more responsibility.

With Christmas fast approaching, charities across the region are now bracing themselves for an influx of unwanted 'presents' that will also be handed into the already overflowing re-homing centres.

To help prevent people giving dogs as a Christmas present, Dogs Trust centres do not re-home dogs during the festive period.

The number of stray dogs in the north east has gone up by 93% in the last 4 years. The latest figures released by *The Dogs Trust *show around 27 dogs are picked up each day.

Dogs Trust, the UK's largest dog welfare charity, has released the figures today from its 16th annual Stray Dog Survey. 118,9321 stray and abandoned dogs were picked up by Local Authorities across the UK over the last 12 months.

The charity is asking owners to get a microchip placed under their dogs skin to help reunited lost dogs with their owners.